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Crossbow vs Bow?

So I brought a Forest Gnome Ranger to level 35 before I grew tired of him. He absolutely destroys war camps from hiding, but having to use a short bow leaves me wanting.

I was told to try a crossbow and just want some opinions. I was looking into the gnomish ones since I heard gnomes get an advantage. What type of advantage do they get? I've never even tried a crossbow tbh. Advantages, disadvantages?

They offer significant DS penalties and tend to be much slower, but if you can stay in hiding the whole time, you could get the AS bonus from kneeling and the AS bonus from Camouflage and destroy things. I'm not sure whether you'd find the 5-shot mechanical bow or the speed bows to be better. I'd generally say the 5-shot, but the speed bow might be better in a warcamp overall.

Edit: I'd max every hiding skill to make this happen, so 2x hiding, CMAN Shadow Mastery, and even blessings lore if you can work it in.

Get a mechanical crossbow from Duskruin that can hold 3+ bolts (max is 5 bolts).

As long as you have 1 bolt loaded into the crossbow, the cock time is 2s flat. Fire is 2s, aimed fire is 3s. So you're looking at 5s RT + the time it takes for the game to process your commands. Additionally, Rangers have a specific perk if you're using 608 as an opener. You can cock a crossbow while in casting RT. This makes them faster than bows on the initial shot after using 608. For bows you have 3s cast RT, then you can fire for 5s RT. For crossbows, you have 3s cast RT, combined with 2s cock RT, and fire in 2-3s (depending on aiming).

Secondly, you can kneel for +30 AS.

None of the above actions will take you out of stealth.

Order of operations - cast 608, cock my crossbow, get 1 my bolt from <container>, load crossbow, *optional* kneel, fire target, stance defensive, stand (if kneeling). This is a lot more commands to process vs a bow, but it comes with higher DF, and potentially higher AS if you decide to use the kneel option. Recommend you develop a simple script or macro to manage the command sequence. You don't need to stance into offensive either, doing the cock action forces you into offensive.

As mentioned, you'll lose some parry DS. I don't think it's significant in offensive stance, but can be noticeable in defensive stance.

I have a level 62 halfling ranger and use a mechanical crossbow with the afformentioned 608 and kneeling. I love it.

However, this hunting style is fiddly so make some good macros or scripts... Kneel, cast 608, fire, cock, load bolt, loot, gather bolt(s), put bolts in quiver, stand... For each critter. If you don't mind the fiddly it's a blast.

It's definitely a little fiddly, but so is ranged in general. The biggest problem I ran into was accidentally cocking the crossbow with no bolts in it, since it behaves like a standard crossbow when unloaded (as far as cocking RT is concerned). I just made a macro that loaded a bolt after (or probably before?) every shot I fired.

I liked it well enough with my halfling rogue, but eventually gave it up for UAC. Though now that I've basically abandoned my rogue for my monk, maybe it's time to try ranged again...